Chapter Twenty
Rosalie
It’s not the crowd that bothers me. Andrew and I used to linger with our backs pressed against whatever wall we could find and watch Emily and Mike flit around and hold court. Emily remembered everyone’s names, and if she didn’t, Mike was charming enough that the slight was easily forgiven. Emily could probably make small talk with a Mortae, and with Mike by her side, they’d have Death fawning over them in the time I’ve had my eyes closed.
“You’re no lamb,” Andrew would say with his arms crossed and eyes narrowed. “Turn around.”
But Andrew isn’t the one whispering in my ear.
“Keep your eyes shut.” Marcella’s breath is hot against my skin. “He’ll throw a fit if you go blind.”
“They hate him.”
“Of course they do. Have you met him?”
I’m in no mood for jokes, and I’m about to tell her as much, but she wraps her arm around the top of my chest to lay her hand on my shoulder. When she lowers her mouth to my ear again, her words are flecked with awe. “Can you hear that?”
The room beyond my eyelids flashes white. “Hear what?”
Before she can answer, the light dims, and the fluorescents above flicker back to life. She squeezes my shoulder. “I feel like I should apologize to you. I won’t, but I ought to.”
I open my eyes and twist towards her. She’s staring over my shoulder, head bowed and brows knitted.
“Apologize?” I follow her gaze to Theo, now perched on the milk crate. He’s sprawled the way he once was on my couch, legs wide and chin high. On first glance, he looks bored and a bit fatigued but mostly annoyed. Elias approaches first, stopping beside him. A beat later, the crowd steps forward, meager like the first drops of rain before a downpour. I blink and lose him in the swell of bodies.
Marcella pats my shoulder once and releases me. “Now it’s a party.”
I take that as my cue to turn fully, smoothing my hands down the front of my borrowed sweater vest. A terrible buzzing sound like gnats circling my head makes me tug at my earlobe and scowl. Marcella pays me no mind, scanning the crowd. She’s always alert, but the spread of her feet and shifting of her weight leads me to ask, “Do you trust these people?”
“Always with the questions,” she mutters. “I trust that we have the same aims. Beyond that?” She glances at me and then away. “I would’ve left you with Az.”
“I don’t need to be passed around like a child.”
“Right. Best to let you go home then. See how long before…” She trails off as Elias emerges from the cluster of bodies surrounding Theo and starts towards us.
The ringing in my ears intensifies to the point of a headache. I squint and glare at Marcella. “Can you stop—”
Her shoulders drop at the same time the ringing does. "It would be so much more convenient if you were normal.”
“Seconded.” I flex my fingers, ignoring the urge to run, the instinct that has been gnawing at me since I set foot inside this building. Death is here, the animal in me cries.
Marcella snorts. "Hardly."
I whip my head to her and ready a reprimand, but Elias settles in front of us before I can open my mouth. “May I have a word?” Elias asks, looking at Marcella instead of me.
“You may not.”
“I’m no danger to her. You know that.”
“Sure, but if I walk away, your prince will lecture me until we’re both back in the ground. If you have something to say, say it. I’ll close my ears. Promise.”
Elias sighs, flicking up his glasses and shuffling to my side. He tilts his head towards me, auburn waves sliding down the cuff of his ear. “Are you as opposed to my company?”
The crowd has thinned enough for me to catch Theo’s eyes over the shoulders of the Mortae currently hoarding his attention. This far away, I can’t tell if that frown is aimed at me. “Keep talking and I’ll decide.”
His shoulders move like he’s laughing, but no sound escapes. “You never did tell me your name.”
“I thought he’d tell you.”
His smile tightens, but his words are gentle. “Then you don’t know him.”
I stiffen, but he continues before I can protest, “It’s not a fault of yours. I’m sure you’ve tried, as I’ve tried, but Theodore loves his secrets. It leaves little room in his heart for anything else.”
“You’re wrong.” Bodies dip in and out of the crowd surrounding Theo, allowing me only the briefest glances of him sitting on the milk crate. Despite his own words, he doesn’t look like a god. The way he’s slouching reminds me of how Andrew would lounge during our free period when we were meant to be studying. He rolls his eyes at something the Mortae before him says and gives a terse reply. As if sensing my attention, he flicks his eyes towards me, but his expression doesn’t change. “He loves you. He told me so.”
This draws a full-bodied laugh from Elias. “Don’t lie for my benefit. If my affection for him was transactional, it would’ve faded decades ago.” He turns to face me fully. “I’m not trying to be cruel. I only mean to offer you the same advice I was given.”
“I don’t need your advice.”
“And still, I’ll provide it.” He straightens his glasses and lowers his head to meet my eyes. “You will never have all of him. Accept that, or hurt yourself trying.”
I shift away from him, closer to Marcella, and look again towards Theo, obscured by Mortae vying for his approval. Of all the things I expected to deal with today, a jealous ex was not on my radar. “Maybe the issue was with you, not with him.”
He says nothing, letting the jab settle. Andrew would’ve started swinging at the first whiff of an insult. He loved unwinnable fights. When we get back to Cora’s house, I’ll ask Marcella to teach me how to throw a punch.
“I hope you’re half as durable as you are bullheaded,” Elias says with a glance over my shoulder.
“Careful,” Marcella murmurs. “His Majesty does eavesdrop.”
Elias shrugs with one shoulder. “He delights in chastising me, and who am I to deny him the pleasure?”
I start, “What exactly were you two doing in—” My feet leave the ground as Elias’ hands find my hips and yank me towards him. A man lunges towards the space I previously occupied, stumbling. I crash into Elias’ chest, bracing my hands against him and twisting against his hold. There’s a clatter behind me— a body slammed against concrete. The room goes as still as the moment between an inhale and exhale, waiting for the inevitable consequence of an inevitable action.
The air charges like I’ve been dragging my socked feet on carpet. Steady footsteps approach us, and I stop struggling. Elias stares over my shoulder. I brace myself for the ringing in my ears, but it doesn’t come. The frigidity of Theodore’s voice cuts through the silence like an icicle spearing snow.
“Let him stand.”
This distracts Elias enough to allow me to twist and face the commotion. His hands settle again on my shoulders. He pulls me so my back is flush against his chest. He’s not breathing.
The man who tried to attack me is on his feet, staring at Theo with a quivering lower lip. He isn’t a man at all but a boy. Floppy blonde hair cuts across his face and obscures one of his wide eyes. The band tee he’s wearing is one I recognize, one Mike owns, and his loose-fitting jeans are ripped in one knee. He can’t be more than sixteen, or at least doesn’t look it.
Marcella hovers behind him with her hands at her sides. She doesn’t need to restrain him anymore. A collar of white light is wrapped around his neck, and rope made of the same material curves through the air, ending in Theo’s closed fist.
“Don’t,” I whisper, but none of them are listening.
Theo takes a step, yanking on the leash. The boy stumbles but doesn’t fall.
“Bold,” Theo says in a voice I’ve never heard from him, not even with James. He cocks his head to the side, and a chill skates down my spine. “I don’t know you. I feel like I should.”
The boy opens his mouth to respond, but the words swell into a pained groan as lightning flashes up his neck. “I didn’t ask you to speak,” Theo says. He takes another graceful step and flicks his eyes towards Marcella. “His name?”
“Hayes,” Marcella says.
Theo rubs his chin with his free hand like this means something. Elias squeezes my shoulders in warning, but I couldn’t speak even if I found the words. Theo needs their respect. I understand that, I do, and this— it’s just for show, an intimidation tactic. He won’t actually… He wouldn’t.
“You’re new,” Theo says, pressing closer. “A few decades dead at most, is that right?” He holds up his hand. “Rhetorical question. Don’t stress yourself. But you ran a few years back. You were,” his lip curls, “dissatisfied by my mother’s leadership, the way most of us are. So you found her,” a gesture towards Marcella, “or she found you— We won’t get into the semantics. It filled you with purpose, a path through the slog of this afterlife. You were no longer an expendable soldier but a revolutionary. Then what?”
Theodore yanks at the leash again, and the boy topples to the ground.
“See, that wasn’t a rhetorical question.” He walks until the front of his shoes are pressed against the boy’s fingers, looking down on him like a long-toothed predator assessing a carcass. “Did my mother offer you power? An invite to some secret Mortae society? A gold watch?” He squats, tilting the boy’s chin up with his free hand. “What was worth betraying yourself?”
In a mumbled breath, the boy manages, “Forgiveness.”
“Forgiveness,” Theo repeats, dropping his hand and rising. “I don’t mean to insult you in your last moments of conscious thought, but I fear your Hail Marys would’ve found deaf ears. I watched your friend die, the one you tried to talk into coming… here. She stood taller than you did, and still my mother offered no mercy. But,” he wipes his hand on his pants, “I’m no tyrant.” Without turning, he speaks to the silent audience. “Should he be spared?”
Nobody responds. Not even me.
“I will not make a habit of repeating myself.”
I don’t know who starts it. Like a slow clap after the fall of a curtain, one whispered no turns into two and then twenty, erupting into a chorus of damnation.
He wouldn’t.
Theo shrugs with the shoulder of the arm holding the leash. “Your mistakes. Their decision.”
“Please,” the boy blubbers from the floor. “I— I have information. I can tell you— I can still help.”
When Theo finally looks at me, there’s nothing familiar in his expression. His gentle half-grin has been replaced by a mouth set in an uncaring line, and his irises are so black that even the reflections of the overhead lights get absorbed. If I fell into them now, I’d be falling forever.
He doesn’t scare me, but for the first time, I think he should.
An upward flick of his chin is the only order Elias needs. He tugs at my shoulders, leading me away and to the door. I’m not proud of how quietly I go, but pride and survival are so rarely synchronous. Andrew would’ve thrashed and screamed, but I’m not a fighter. He knew that. If he hadn’t done what he did— If I did what I didn’t do, I wouldn’t be standing in the freezing rain in front of an abandoned building. I wouldn’t be covering my ears just in case Hayes starts screaming.
“Car’s unlocked,” Elias says. He let me go as soon as we were outside, though he looks about ready to grab me if I change my mind about a peaceful exit. “You should get in before you catch a fever.”
Despite the chattering of my teeth and the wet hair plastered to my cheeks, I don’t move. Mist curls on the sidewalk, dancing in the wind around Elias’ legs. As if he’s abandoned the tiny movements that differentiate human from statue— living from not— he stands completely still. He’s not the one I want answers from, but if I take his earlier warning to heart, he’s the only person who might give them. “What happens to our souls when we die?”
His glasses are fogged and specked with drops, but he doesn’t wipe them. “I’m no theologian.”
“What do Mortae do with our souls?”
The look on his face isn’t pity. Pity’s cousin maybe, it’s that close. “We should get out of the rain.”
When I start to cry, Elias is kind enough to pretend he doesn’t notice. Thunder cracks the silence once he’s done explaining. He’s sitting in the driver’s seat with his hands in his lap, staring out the windshield like he can see through the raindrops sliding down the glass. I’m beside him, shivering in spite of the cranked heater. The engine is running.
“It’s not as horrific as it sounds,” he says.
“You eat people.”
“We… absorb energy from people who are no longer using it.”
“Have you killed anyone?”
“Yes.” He glances at me sidelong. “I’d prefer to leave it at that.”
Thanking him for his honesty is beyond me. I wipe at my cheeks. “Why didn’t he tell me?”
Elias blows out a breath. “I hesitate to speak for him.”
“You’re more than qualified. You’ve known him for longer than I’ve been alive.”
“And still, I can only guess at his motives.” He takes off his glasses and rubs at his eyes. "I won’t betray his confidence further. Though I weather his disapproval, I don't particularly enjoy it."
Lightning cuts through the clouds, and the rain slows to a drizzle. The fog on the street is thick enough to cast day into darkness, painting the morning a dull gray. It makes sense, at least, why Andrew never came to me as a ghost. If he had the ability to, he would’ve. The idea of him rotting in a Mortae’s stomach makes me ill, but it’s more comforting than the alternative: he saw me suffering his loss, and he stayed away.
Elias turns to me and leans over the gear shift. “If you disregard my advice, fine, but I’m asking you to listen to me now. Morrigan is crafty, and she is endlessly cruel. She will find you, and she will make promises, and you’re going to think she’s trying to help— you, or him, it doesn’t matter. The conditions will never outweigh the benefits. Do you understand?”
I don’t, but I nod.
“Your death would upset him.” He glances over my shoulder at the sound of a door creaking open. “Please try to avoid it.” Through the rain-flecked windshield, Elias tracks Theodore’s approach. Once he’s close enough to warrant letting the cold in, Elias pops the driver’s door open and stands in the street. There aren’t any cars approaching, but even if there were, I doubt he’d be more careful. It’s not like he can die twice.
Theodore walks like the rain doesn't touch him even though it soaks his clothes and hair. Of course it does because he's still a man, or he was once, or he could be. He stops in front of Elias and stares at the space over his shoulder, distracted. Any lingering anger has frozen into a mask that I want to tear off with my bare hands, damn the frostbite, damn the chipping of my nails. I nearly do just that, but Elias beats me to it.
Palms against cheeks, Elias cradles Theodore's face and presses their foreheads together. He whispers something I can't hear over the rain, and Theodore closes his eyes. My face heats. He was telling the truth about that, at least.
I expect to start yelling when Theo gets in the car, but the perfectly stoic expression on his face makes me reconsider. The argument can wait.
"Marcella is staying to organize the patrols," he says, shifting the car into drive. He doesn't bother with the wipers. "She'll meet us at home."
I stare at my lap. "Okay."
He exhales through his nose and tightens his grip on the wheel. "I didn't want—" He stops and tilts his head like he's listening to someone I can't hear, like they interrupted him.
“Pull over,” I say.
“What?”
Firmer this time, “Pull over.” He looks as impassive as glass and twice as fragile. An ill-timed word might shatter him. A red light might. “I’ll drive.”
When we get to Cora’s house, the rain has stopped completely. The grass squishes when we step on it, dusted with dew. Theodore holds the front door open for me, stretching his neck from one side to the other like he’s working out a cramp. After the door shuts behind us, I turn and look at him fully for the first time since he stepped onto the pallet. His sleeves are pushed up to his elbows, revealing the bulging veins in his forearms and his clenched fists. Though my hair is still damp from the rain and probably frizzing, his curls are dry and just a touch beyond intentionally styled. If not for the thinness of his lips and the distance in his eyes, he’d look exactly how he did this morning.
There’s no blood on him. I thought there might be.
The whisper escapes unbidden. “You killed him.”
His eyes snap to mine. Devastating clarity flares his nostrils for only a second before his expression clouds again, out of my reach. “Yes.”
“You lied to me.”
“Yes.”
If he tried to deny it or claim it was a misunderstanding, I could've believed him. We could've carried on as we were. I almost hate him for the admission, except I don't. Not for the severing of my trust or the lack of finesse in repairing it. Not even for the murder, but for my dignity's sake, I'm determined to pretend.
Andrew never wondered about his soul except to quote Brontë at me. He'd sneer if I told him the truth.
"You and me," he'd say. "We'll give them nasty heartburn."
I start, "Do you know who—"
Theo closes the distance between us and presses his lips to my forehead. I screw my eyes shut and breathe him in like the moment before a thunderstorm. My curiosity loses its footing, stumbling into docility.
"Excuse me for a moment," he murmurs against my skin before stepping away and heading for the back door.
Pride keeps me from following him. Instead, I head to the kitchen and brush the dangling plants aside to peer through the window. Sunlight struggles through the clouds, and the leaves of the massive oak sway with the wind. Theodore steps into the shadow of the tree. Blades of grass curl and wither beneath his steps, leaving a path of dry brown behind him. He kneels beneath the oak and tilts his head towards the sky. A crack of lightning cleaves the sky, and the rain returns with a fervor.
There’s more than a window and a few yards between us. I couldn’t comfort him even if I could see his face.
Like a flame burning too hot to be visible, waves of energy thrum from Theo and wilt the foliage around him. The bark of the tree cracks as its moisture is drawn out, aging a decade in an instant. I lean over the sink to get a better look. My elbow catches on a half-filled water glass on the counter, sending it careening to the ground. Glass shatters. I leap back and tear my eyes from Theo to survey the damage.
Frustrated tears blur the shards of glass on tile, and Theodore explodes outside, and I can’t fix any of it. For years, I've let myself shrink, and now I'm surprised to be small? My hand finds another piece of glassware, a thinner and taller cup. I hold it against the light, enamored by the way it passes through without any resistance, and then I let it fall. It makes a bright sound when it hits the tile. Shards of glass flee beneath the counter, under the refrigerator, and over my shoes.
I do this again and again, throwing open cupboards and drawers. I break anything that is capable of being broken. I make a mess I can clean, a problem I can solve.
"Can His Majesty cease the tantrum?" a voice calls from the front door. "You're ruining my hair!"
I pause with my hand hovering over a ceramic plate, panting. Over my shoulder, I catch Marcella standing in the arch between the kitchen and the living room. Her hands are on her hips. She's not quite grimacing, but her disapproval is palpable.
She waves a hand towards the mess I've made. "Don't let me stop you."
"Sorry." I turn to face her fully and wipe my hands on my clothes— not my clothes. There's so little that's mine. "I'm sorry."
"Don't be. I've done worse. Fits are contagious, it seems." She walks towards me, stomping on the broken glass like it won't hurt her. Probably won't. The soles of her shoes are thicker than mine, and she's already dead. "You want to talk about it?"
I shake my head.
"Good. Neither do I." Hands on my waist, she lifts me up like I weigh nothing and sets me on the counter. "I'll grab the broom."
Marcella sweeps, and I knock my heels against the cabinet. She's as meticulous as she is quick, gathering the glass into a dustpan and dumping it into the garbage in less time than it would've taken me to find the cleaning supplies. Her hair is smooth and still parted down the middle, straight and shiny despite her exclamation when she came in. She's beautiful, but not like a person. She's beautiful like the doll my mom bought me when I was three years old, kept in its packaging and gathering dust in my father's attic in case it becomes a collector's item and makes me a much richer woman.
"You ask so many questions," Marcella says, dropping to a squat and inspecting the tile to make sure she didn't miss the smallest shards, "but not the one I've been anticipating."
I lean forward and grip the edge of the counter to keep from falling. "What's that?"
She stands, dusting her palms together. "You haven't asked how I died."
"I thought…" I tap one finger against the counter. "That's a personal question, isn't it?"
"Never stopped you before."
It feels like a trap. Probably because it is a trap. "How'd you die?"
"I was murdered," she says, as if she were discussing the weather or an upcoming football game.
"Oh."
She laughs, low and quick. "Yeah." She nods towards the window. "So was he. And Elias, and Az. It's Morrigan's preference, not a requirement— as far as I know, at least, and I know very little."
"She prefers people who were killed?"
"She prefers people who are desperate."
I nod, resisting the urge to look over my shoulder at Theo lest I run out there and shake him, or worse, hold him. "Why are you telling me this?"
"Two reasons." She counts them off on her fingers. "First, context. You deserve to know what sort of company you're keeping. Vengeful spirits, if you will. And two," she dips her head, forcing me to make eye contact, "if there's blood in the water, Morrigan will sniff it out. You're part of something bigger than yourself now, and it's not fair of me to ask this of you, but I'm asking it anyway: keep your shit together."
"Don't be desperate," I echo.
"Exactly."
"Would she kill me?"
Marcella clicks her tongue and gestures for me to hop down, which I do. "Honest answer?"
"No."
She puts her hand on my back and leads me to the living room. "We can keep you safe."